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Solar cells of the future

A new material, nano flakes, may revolutionise the
transformation of solar energy to electricity. If so, even
ordinary households can benefit from solar electricity and
save money in the future.

If researcher Martin Aagesen’s future solar cells meet
the expectations, both your economy and the environment will
benefit from the research. Less than 1 per cent of the
world’s electricity comes from the sun because it is
difficult to transform solar energy to electricity. But
Martin Aagesen’s discovery may be a huge step towards
boosting the exploitation of solar energy.

- We believe that the nano flakes have the potential to
convert up to 30 per cent of the solar energy into
electricity and that is twice the amount that we convert
today, says Martin Aagesen who is a PhD from the
Nano-Science Center and the Niels Bohr Institute at
University of Copenhagen. During his work on his PhD thesis,
Martin found a new and untried material.

- I discovered a perfect crystalline structure. That is a
very rare sight. While being a perfect crystalline structure
we could see that it also absorbed all light. It could
become the perfect solar cell, says Martin Aagesen. The
discovery of the new material has sparked a lot of attention
internationally and has led to an article in Nature
Nanotechnology.

- The potential is unmistakeable. We can reduce the
solar cell production costs because we use less of the
expensive semiconducting silicium in the process due to the
use of nanotechnology. At the same time, the future solar
cells will exploit the solar energy better as the distance
of energy transportation in the solar cell will be shorter
and thus lessen the loss of energy, says Martin Aagesen who
is also director of the company SunFlake Inc. that pursues
development of the new solar cell.